The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (16 page)

"Listen, you little motherfucker.  My husband is watching us right now.  He's six foot three and if you so much as touch any of us, he'll be down here in an instant and he'll fuck you up real bad.  Got that, you little piece of shit?"

She reached into her purse and pulled out a knife.  Fallon recognized it as the grey colored plastic box cutter she used to open dollar store boxes of shaving cream and greeting cards and everything else that they sold.

The blade opened with a snap, "And once he's done you with you, shit-for-brains, I'll take over.  I'll cut your balls off and shove them down your throat so you choke.  I'll cut your dick off too if it's not too shriveled up for me to find.  Now get the hell out of our way before I say something that a fucking lady shouldn't say."

The kid's eyes got real big and he took a step back as she spoke.  "You fucking crazy," he said as he left.

***

As they arrived at their apartment, Patti started to shake with the memory of what she'd just done.  Dy sat beside her and held her hand as she spoke, "The company had a training course for managers.  It was all done over the Internet.  One part was on how to handle difficult customers.  It was all like, 'tell him you understand,' and 'I see your point.'  I tried it once on a fat woman who was pissed because we were out of sanitary napkins.  It didn't work.  Getting in their face works a whole lot fucking better."

Dy smiled at her.

That night, she invited Patti into their bed.

***

The next morning they ate a meager breakfast and discussed what had happened.

Fallon said, "Unless the power comes back on, or someone delivers food, I think this place is going to get dangerous real quick."

Dy nodded her agreement.  "We could always go to the trailer.  It's small but," she looked at Patti, "we could make it work."

Patti smiled at her.  "We've got my place too, don't forget.  We can hole up there for a while."

It seemed like a good idea.

She continued, "Plus, it's full of guns."

Regina Martin stared at the wall of video screens and frowned.  The counter that displayed "Estimated US Deaths" was barely above 40,000 and Jason McCrae had bothered her with questions about why it seemed to be stuck there.  "Is something not working?" he'd asked.

Regina was annoyed at the question and its implication.  First, he knew the plan.  He'd helped to finalize and refine it for over two years.  He knew things were proceeding well within their projections.  So his asking such a question was annoying.

Second, they were almost to one of the most critical parts of the plan and he knew that too.  Rather than concentrate on the rest of the world, he was fixated on that Death Clock.  For a moment, Regina wondered why she'd spent the last two years with him; why she'd brought him into their inner circle, allowed him to participate in their planning, welcomed him into her bed.

She knew the answer to all those questions, of course.  It was his battery and his money.  They had needed the money desperately to complete their preparations without being discovered.  Her father had access to unlimited amounts of government money, but it had to be used carefully so that no one would become suspicious.  Jason's $12 Billion had allowed them to build their headquarters and make sure they had everything they needed.

The battery was, perhaps, even more important than the money.  It allowed them to plan a future with power - not just at their headquarters, but in the other areas they wanted to develop post SHTF.  It was all part of the plan - the battery was a late and welcome addition, but the rest of it was basically as she conceived it all those years ago.

Regina had to admit to herself that Jason had done his part.  He'd handed over the money and supervised the building of the battery factory, along with his own top secret facility to make the "secret sauce."  Since he was the only one who knew the formula, he had been an indispensable member of the inner circle.

But he wasn't indispensable any longer.  They had several years supply of his batteries in storage.  Jason didn't know that; it was a part of the plan she'd never told him.

***

She left her seat and went over to him.  She bent down and reached between his legs and started to massage him as she bit his ear hard enough to hurt.  Her fingers felt him stir.

It had been almost a month since she'd allowed him to sleep with her.  While this was part of the plan, it also wasn't too unusual - sometimes she needed sex every day, and sometimes she'd go a month or more without it.  She didn't spend much time thinking about it, other than to realize that it probably had something to do with the plan - as it moved towards each new stage, she tended to become celibate until she pushed it through one checkpoint or another.  Then she would be ravenous with desire.  Jason had seen several of her cycles and was used to them.  It could be hard on him though, because she told him that if he slept with anyone else, he'd never have her again.

"Stand up, Jason," she said.  Her voice was raspy which further excited him.

As he stood before her, she unzipped him and then slid his pants to his ankles.  She sat in his chair.  Her rubbing had produced the desired effect almost immediately - the poor boy must have been really horny.

She slowly stroked him with one hand and then the other.  He closed his eyes and moaned.

She used a sharp fingernail to draw a line at the spot near the tip where she knew he was most sensitive.  He twitched with the pain, and his hips started to thrust involuntarily.

"Do you want me to lick you?" she asked.  It was something she seldom did.  He asked her once why that was - she was so very good at it - but she never answered.

Before he could engage the modern part of his brain to produce speech, her tongue went to work.  Starting at the very base, it slowly worked its way upward until her lips took over and encased him wetly.  She squeezed his testicles hard and repeated.  He moaned and she felt the first sign of the oncoming muscle contractions.  It was just a tiny one - but it was there.  She backed off the pressure ever so slightly.  It wasn't quite time yet.

"Jason, it's been really good with us, hasn't it?  We're doing history's most important work and we have history's best sex.  You like it, right?"

"God yes," it sounded like he spoke with difficulty; like he had to remember how.

"I've given you everything Jason, and you promised to give me everything, but you haven't."

She increased the speed and the pressure slightly.  Now she used her sharp nail again.

"No . . ."

"Yes, Jason.  I gave you everything, but you didn't do the same for me.  You held something back.  Tell me the password to the machine that makes the secret sauce."

"Oh, Regina . . . don't . . ."

She felt another small contraction.  She encircled him at his base with her thumb and forefinger and squeezed hard to block off the flow of blood.  "Tell me Jason, I'll give you everything - you give me everything.  Our lives will be truly perfect."

Her lips and tongue now teased him as she felt the pressure build by the second.  He wanted release; she could feel his need, but with her fingers locked around him like a vice, he couldn't.

"Tell me, Jason.  Tell me.  Tell me."  With each repetition she brought him further beyond the boundary he'd never crossed - one he never knew existed.

He told her.  It was so simple - "JasonRegina."  She would have never guessed it.

She let him go and walked away so that he was forced to finish on his own.

***

She returned to her chair, opened her purse and tossed him a pack of tissues.  "Clean yourself up, for God's sake."  He was used to hearing love and respect in her voice.  Now it betrayed something else; something slightly worrying.

Regina turned her back on him and picked up a complex looking phone and pushed buttons.  "Can you come in here, please?  Yeah, bring two others.  Where is the next supply delivery?"

She sat and began to type on her keyboard and studied the screens before her.  She didn't say a word to Jason.  He’d heard her call, so he finished cleaning and zipped himself just in time as the door opened with a 'whoosh.'  A tall Lieutenant carrying a sidearm and two enlisted me came in.  His name tag said, "Klein."

She momentarily looked at the three men.  "Put him on the plane and drop him off somewhere outside of town.  Make it back in the woods if you can - he's a nature lover."

Jason heard her words clearly, but their meaning escaped him until the three men surrounded him, "Sir, please come with us."  It was spoken like an order.

"What the hell?  Regina, what the fuck is going on?"

She sighed loudly as if she resented having her attention again taken from the screens.  She spoke without looking at him, "It's the plan, Jason.  It's proceeding, but your part of it is over."  She turned her attention to the three soldiers, "Now take him and put him on the plane - no stopping for anything. Got it?"

They took him by the elbows and tried to guide him to the door.  Jason fought back, but it did no good.

Just before the door closed, he called out "Regina!  Don't do this!  Please!"

He thought she said "Enjoy Pittsburgh," but he wasn't sure.

Jason thought he knew the plan, that he fully understood the sweeping grandness of it, but he was wrong.  Regina had written him into it on the first day they'd met - the day she'd agreed to drive him to his plane because he had something she wanted.  It took over two years, but she got it.

He thought about all that had happened - her seducing him, bringing him into her inner circle, getting him to pay for so much based on the promise that he would be one of those that would literally inherit the Earth and become one of its rulers.

But it was all a lie.  As he flew in the noisy Osprey, he knew that without a doubt.  She'd played him from the beginning.  It was like a chess game where she checkmated him on the first move.

As he was shoved into the small seat of the half airplane/half helicopter, he felt despair.  He thought about trying to open the door and jump as soon as they were airborne.  But he realized that wouldn't be easy - the rear area was packed with cartons labeled, "36 Count - Single Day Individual Emergency Rations, 1 Each."  Jason knew what was in them - canned or freeze dried food that provided 3000 balanced calories; enough for a single person for a single day or for two people if they were small and went a little hungry.

Also in each individual box were matches, water purification tablets, 48 inches of toilet paper, four sanitary napkins, a cheap toothbrush, a condom, and a flu vaccine inhaler.  This was the second big blow built into the plan.

The first had been the EMP burst.  It had been successful, but still there were only about 40,000 who had died so far.  It was early, and certainly the number of deaths would soon start to multiply, what with the lack of food deliveries and with winter starting to take hold in the north.

But people were resourceful; already communications were starting to sputter back online here and there.  People were organizing into groups, to share what they had and defend themselves from those who wanted it.  The military, caught with the majority of its members on Christmas leave, were finally responding since a significant portion of their equipment had been hardened to withstand an EMP attack.  The V-22 Osprey aircraft he was flying on was a testament to that - it could carry ten tons of cargo and fly fast like a plane, while taking off and landing like a helicopter.  The Pentagon had over two hundred such planes and they could do a lot to help civilization recover.

That was why the plan called for more and more assaults upon the living.  The second was the flu vaccine.  It was so simple - anyone could administer the vaccine themselves.  The sprayer looked like a syringe, but it had no needle - you just held it to each nostril and pushed the plunger.  Instructions in pictographs were printed right on the applicator.

But this particular flu vaccine was different.  Normal spray vaccines contained real flu virus, but in a much weakened state so that your immune system would react to the virus, but you could not actually get the flu from it.  Jason knew that his particular batch, made just for the aftermath of a SHTF event in a facility he had paid for, had a special surprise in it - real flu virus that was not weakened.  It was chosen from a strain that had killed over fifty million people in 1918.

Out of habit, he studied the boxes, trying to estimate how many there were.  It was simply the way his mind worked.  Even now, with his future uncertain to the point of being dire, his mind seized upon the problem and attempted to solve it almost automatically.

Counting was out of the question - the boxes were stacked in such a way he could see only the ones surrounding him.  He remembered that the V-22 could carry up to ten tons of cargo.  It looked pretty full, so he estimated the load at close to that.  He opened a carton and took out one of the individual boxes.  He judged it weight a bit more than pound.

He could do simple math in his head, so the rest was easy.  There were six to eight thousand meals here.  Each person would probably be given three or four if they had enough - the military couldn't show up at the same place every day with more rations.  One lucky person might get four meals, but he wouldn't need four inhalers - those he would likely share.

So figure three thousand people would get their flu "vaccination" from this single shipment.  Even then, a good number would fight off the disease and not get deathly ill; but the old and the young and the weak and the unlucky would.

Even if only a thousand people got sick, they would provide a drain on the people who tried to care for them - their families or the groups they were forming.  The despair and hopelessness of the living would be easily as damaging as the loss of those thousand people.

But it wasn't just them - each of those thousand would be contagious.  If they lived in a city and came into contact with others, they'd pass on their little gift the old fashioned way and the deadly drama would play out again and again.

That was the plan.  Until two hours ago he was one of those who would ultimately benefit from it.

But now Regina had betrayed him.  He felt anger well up inside like a creature suddenly springing to life.  It had teeth and it nipped him somewhere inside.  It hurt.

***

He had never loved Regina as a person.  Jason didn't think he'd actually ever loved anyone.  He knew he should have at least loved his mother, but he couldn't remember any such thing.

Still, he had loved Regina's body and had been impressed with her mind.  But mostly, he was in awe of her determination.  He saw her, time and again, work a problem to a successful conclusion when others would have given up.

But now, he felt only hatred; the burning, painful kind.  He wanted nothing more than to return and take his revenge - it would have to be painful and degrading, but that presented a problem.

He remembered one time when he had tied her hands and feet to the bed posts.  He was surprised when she didn't object.  Initially, he made the restraints loose so she could escape on her own.  "Tighter," she said.  He tightened them and pulled them until her arms and legs were stretched apart to their limits.

He started out rubbing her and then pinching her gently.  "More," she said.  He got rougher and each time he did, she said, "More."  When they were done, she asked if he wanted to be tied up.  He looked at her, at the small bruised and red marks on her breasts, her thighs, her neck.  "I think I'll pass," he said.

But by whatever means, he pledged to himself that he would return and make her regret what she had done today.  It might be hard to find something painful enough where she might not like it, but when the time came, he would think of something.

He set to work making his own plan.

***

The barest outlines of a plan started to take shape.  It came from the realization that, while she'd taken everything from him - they wouldn't even let him go and get a coat - he still had one thing that was very valuable.

He knew what her plan was and he knew why it had been created.  That was his starting point.

***

He was deep in thought when he heard the engines of the Osprey change their pitch.  He could not see outside, but he felt the craft descend.

He opened one of the ration boxes and found the instruction sheet.  In large red letters it said, "Use Flu Vaccine BEFORE eating."  Regina had come up with this idea, thinking it would increase the number of people who used the inhaler.

He took a Sharpie marker from his pocket and wrote on the instruction sheet, "Do NOT use Flu Inhaler!!!  It contains REAL flu and will kill MANY who use it.  This is their PLAN!!!  Stay away from people who get sick!"  He slipped the sheet back into the box, closed the top and put it back in its carton.  His feeble gesture would probably do no good, but something told him to do it anyway.

***

They left him in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere.  Jason begged them not to leave him out here all alone, but they said they had their orders.  "I don't know what you did to piss off Ms. Martin, but it must have been something big."

As they got back in the plane, he begged them for a jacket; it was cold here with snow blowing here and there across the lot.  He only had on a sweater over his shirt.  "Sorry, dude, she said to not let you have anything."

"For God's sake, at least leave me some food!  I'll starve out here if you don't."

One pilot looked at the other and shrugged his shoulders.  He reached in the back and tossed Jason a single ration box and then they left.

***

The air coming off the lake was cold and Jason was shivering as he sat on some rocks and looked at the water.  All around the lake were woods with a walking trail leading away from the lot.  A sign told him this was a park and it listed all its rules and regulations.  "Park closes at dusk," was the final one.

Jason thought about simply lying down and waiting until the sun left along with the feeble warmth it was providing, but that creature inside nipped him and the pain forced him to stand.  His anger at Regina rekindled instantly.

He walked out of the parking lot and up a paved road.  There was another, even bigger, parking lot up here beside a country road.  A sign in blue read, "Save Gas!  Share a Ride!"  The parking lot was empty.

He had no idea where he was, but he knew he needed to find people and shelter if he was to survive.  The temperature had to be below freezing already and it was still afternoon.  One night out here might be enough to kill him.

He knew he'd have to walk on the road, hoping someone would drive by so he could flag them down.  First though, he had to decide whether to turn right or left.  The creature inside him stabbed him in the right side, so he turned right and started to walk.

In less than five minutes, he saw a worn trail lead off from the road.  It descended into a thick forest, but without leaves on the trees, Jason thought he could just make out the lake down at the bottom of the hill.  He had just been there and knew there was nothing to help him, but this trail was an enigma that his mind tried to understand.

The trail didn't look like much, but it was made by human activity, either people walking on it often or by some sort of vehicle.  He studied the other side of the road - there was no corresponding trail over there.  The problem that his mind was grappling with was why the trail was here?  There were no houses in sight; no reason why people should be using this trail to go down to the lake when they could drive down there in less than a minute.

Jason turned and walked down the trail.  When his mind latched on a problem of logic like this, he had to find the answer.

The trail turned sharply left and that's when he saw it - the little trailer nestled in a small clearing in the woods.  It looked run down and there were no tracks or other signs in the light coating of snow that anyone was around.  He walked to the door and knocked.  "Anyone here?"

***
Even though it was the tackiest place that Jason had slept in many, many years, he was overjoyed to find it.  The trailer offered shelter; he had a place to sleep and blankets to keep him warm.

Even better, it had a propane stove that lit on the first try.  He warmed the contents of a can of beans he found in a cupboard, saving his ration box for some future need.

The water was working so he had shelter, food, a bed and a bathroom.  Things were looking up.

After dinner, he worked on his plan until he fell asleep.